Indiana's Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP)

The first part of Indiana's Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) took place right at six weeks ago.  This was the test where Wide did not know the meaning of the word plot and I was not allowed to tell him the definition.  Knowing this, I was pretty certain that he was not going to pass the language arts part of the test.  Well, it is now six weeks later and I still don't know the results of the test.  Last week, May 1st, we started the second round of ISTEP testing and this is a much longer test.  If it took more than six weeks to get the results of the shorter test it would be safe to assume that it will take longer to get the results of the longer test.  This is where I might get a little animated so beware.  We only have six weeks of school left this year.  That means that the results of the second round of the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) will arrive after the scholars are out of school.  That pretty much renders the test useless and comes with a cost of tens of millions of dollars to the taxpayers of Indiana.  How are you supposed to plan remediation for a scholar that fails to pass the test without the results?  How are you going to make a decision to retain or pass a scholar that has not passed the test without the results?  How can you assign a scholar who did not pass the test to summer school for remediation without the results?  At the start of the next school year when the vast majority of the scholars across the state of Indiana are in another grade level and even another school do you think their teacher is going to check ISTEP scores to determine if a scholar needs remediation.  Hell no!  Tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money has just been pissed away on the Indiana STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process and not one politician or pointy headed intellectual will suffer any consequences for the complete and utter failure of this testing process.

After day one of the second round of ISTEP testing I have a few fun facts for you about the process. 

1. Every scholar had to practice taking the test on a laptop computer.  The amount of time spent practicing depended on the grade level and if a scholar had to take math, language arts or a science test. 
2. This practice testing process took the better part of two weeks as we have a limited number of laptops.  In addition to answering practice test questions the scholar were shown how to maneuver around the screen to find pull down boxes in case a calculator, ruler or math formula was needed.  After the scholar answered each practice question the proctors had to review every question with the scholar to be sure they had the right answer. If a question had the wrong answer a correction was made. 
3. As part of the practice testing process we were given an amount of time to allocate to the testing process.  In EM's case, as a third grade scholar, it was one hundred and forty five minutes.  Please note his practice time is a little shorter than others as he does not have to take the science test.
4. During the testing process there were laptop issues.  Some were connection problems, some were login problems, some were an unresponsive mouse, sometimes the laptop just froze up.  Failures like these are not exactly what you need just prior to taking a test but the practice test sessions were successfully completed.
5. On Friday it was announced that the school was switching from a laptop test to a paper and pencil test.  Why?  No confidence that the connection to the servers that are being provided by a for profit company would work without issues.  We have somewhere between three hundred and three hundred and fifty scholars about to take a state mandated test.  Each scholar spent at a minimum two and a half hours practicing to take this test and the confidence level is so low that the computers will work properly the school switches to paper and pencil.  The amount of classroom instruction time lost was huge.  I almost forgot.  We had to practice taking the paper and pencil test.  What did the scholar have to do?  Practice filling in the bubble on the paper with a number two pencil.
6. One the first day of round two of testing Gnu is working with The Collector and Wide.  I'm with EM.  The test material arrives and Gnu hands me EM's test booklet and the instructor's guide.  The instructor's guide is sixty nine pages long.  EM's test booklet is one hundred and twenty five pages long and I'm about to hand it to him. 
7. The first day of testing for our three scholars went well.  Working directly with EM I know he got all of his math problems correct.  I'm not sure how The Collector and Wide did but Gnu was pleased with what she saw.      

Here is a River update.  Despite an objection from a school overhead person River is being placed in a new school.  I have to give a huge thanks to IvyL who forced the issue that River is in the wrong classroom setting when the overhead person objected to the change of schools.  Thank you IvyL.  River will be attending a school for scholars with significant behavior and /or mental health concerns.  This school also serves as a diagnostic/day treatment program.  This school has a smaller size classroom setting with a teacher, instructional assistant and a social worker in the room.  I believe the maximum student number in this setting is six.  Initially he will go to school for only two and a half hours a day in what is called home bound schooling.  As he progresses the length of the school day will increase.  Although I wasn't at the case conference it go quite interesting I was told.  River's parental unit had an objection to the whole process and commented that you don't care about children.  That is an interesting comment from someone who is sitting with a group of professionals who have dedicated their careers to working with scholars with serious emotional and psychological problems.  That is also an interesting comment from a parental unit that has never stepped foot into our classroom, who left us a home phone number that turned out to be a local utility company, that sent her scholar to school with clothing that was dirty, over or undersized, and at times ragged for fourteen of the nineteen days he was in our classroom.  I suspect the real reason the parental unit said you don't care about children is the fact that the scholar will be at home more during the day which means the parental units busy day doing whatever will be disrupted

One last item, Gnu had the scholars do a science project.  They planted marigolds from seed in Styrofoam cups. Pretty simple project, put the potting soil and marigold seed into the cup and add water.  It was fun to watch as they carefully planted their own seeds.  Watering them was a bit of a concern as you are supposed to water them not drown them but it all worked out.  A few days later up popped the beginning of a marigold.  There was a lot of excitement as everyone had to show me their marigold sprout.  As we were doing show and tell I noticed that Gnu was working on her laptop.  "What are you looking up?" I asked.  "Marigolds, as I don't know what one looks like."  "Oh, never mind, I see there is a picture of a marigold on the seed package."  I know I've I said a number of times I'm working with a really good teacher but at the same time I'm working with a teacher that is a bit of a .........

Just as I thought I was done something popped into my head that I have to comment on.  A while back I mentioned that I was going to a speak easy in Old Town Greenwood with my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse.  On the agenda was an Old Fashion.  Apparently when you are as far west as Utah an Old Fashion is not a common term.  For clarification purposes here is an Old Fashion so please take notes as there may be a test.

Old Fashion
2oz rye whiskey
3 dashes of Angosture bitters
Club soda
1 sugar cube or simple syrup.

Put all of this stuff in a shaker and shake it up.  Then pour into a glass with ice cubes and sip.  No chugging.

I'm out.  It's Sunday evening, the weather is nearly perfect and the grill has been fired up.  That's for reading my blog.